This invention relates to systems and methods for advertisement sponsored efficient distribution of content such as audio, video and other types of multimedia, electronic files etc. It also relates to systems for handling existing and future business and distribution models.
As is well known, the presentation of much audio and video programming, and many Internet web sites (content) can only be provided to the public if they are paid for by embedded advertising. This is why radio and TV programs are constantly interrupted by paid advertising and there is constantly changing banner advertising on many web sites. The ways that people are being exposed to advertising is constantly changing as technology progresses. On the other hand, the public would rather experience such content free of the advertising. Many people are extremely annoyed by the advertisements would rather not experience the content than be exposed to the ads.
In response to the aggravation of the ads, many inventors have tried to come up with systems to eliminate them from the content. U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,735 discloses a technique for an interactive television (ITV) system wherein viewers are allowed to select a desired level of advertisements with which they are provided. The technique comprises transmitting to a subscriber location a program and a set of advertisements (collectively referred to as a “show”). The set of advertisements is selected based upon an input from a user associated with the subscriber location. The input comprises an indicator of an amount of advertisements in the set of advertisements. Another feature of the ITV system described is that it allows for adjusting an amount of a bill of a subscriber to interactive television services based upon the amount of advertisements viewed in a show.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,723 discloses a device containing a plurality of pre-stored program clips corresponding to portions of program information for presentation to a user. A comparator compares the program clips with program information and causes selection of an alternate program in response to a match. In one embodiment, the program information corresponds to a television program and a program clip corresponds to a video frame at the beginning of an undesirable commercial, resulting in a television that automatically selects an alternate program in response an original program having an undesirable commercial. After a predetermined time associated with the video clip the television automatically returns to the original program. The invention also enables creation of new program clips based upon received program information.
However, such inventions are inimical to the desires of advertisers and have not seen commercial implementation. One method of resolving the tension between the desires of the advertisers (to expose as many people as possible to their advertising) and the desires of the public (to be exposed to as few advertisements as possible in their daily lives) would be to allow users of content to at least select how they will be exposed to advertising. For example, instead of having their favorite TV program interrupted at intervals with commercials, the viewer could, for a fee, choose to see all the advertising at the beginning or the end of the program. Or a listener could, again for a fee, choose to have the advertisements presented in video form while listening so as not interrupt the music. Or a web browser could choose, again for a fee, to hear rather than see banner advertising so as to see more information on screen.
Development of a system which can allow users to choose how to experience advertising represents a great improvement in the fields of marketing and advertising and satisfies a long felt need of the public as well as advertisers and marketers.